#Aquarius: Spain accepts vessel with illegal migrants

Today the European Commission attempted to reduce the tensions around the notorious illegal migrants transport vessel #Aquarius repelled by Italian authorities, to a bilateral issue between Rome and Valletta. Spanish new Prime minister Pedro Sanchez stretched his had to Brussels, saving the EU image, while the solidarity between the member-states on illegal migrants issue is crumbling.

🔴 UPDATE The #Aquarius remains instructed to standby between #Italy and #Malta. The 629 rescued people’s conditions are stable but risk worsening over the day. They are becoming more anxious & asking when they will be able to reach shore. pic.twitter.com/lipr2bqwgE

Within the #Aquarius context the were no calls for solidarity with the other EU member states to share the burden of illegal migration flows from Africa Italy suffers since the destruction of Libyan state, which destabilized the entire region. The Institution also declined any responsibility for the situation pointing at an absence of mandate to deal with the issue, belonging to the jurisdictions of the nation-states. It reduced its intervention by launching an appeal to Italy to find a rapid humanitarian response.

The Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini passed to action, rejecting #Aquarius 629 illegal immigrants transported by from Libyan coasts. The decision came after a protracted period of attempts of Italian successive governments to resolve the issue through European solidarity, relocating the migrants, which failed to function. Matteo Salvini, the Interior minister, firmly rejected to follow the line of his predesessor, letting Italy to become one giant ‘European migrant camp’.

“‘Italy has stopped bowing the head and to obey, this time there are those who say NO” – Salvini tweeted, pointing that there is already another NGO ship ‘Sea Watch 3’ under Dutch flag, run by a German NGO, off the coast of Libya to carry another load of immigrants to Italy.

According the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982) a state is in is right to establish and practice ‘legislative jurisdiction’ in its sea aquatorium, including to fight the illegal migration (article 19), and also to reject a vessel if there is a suspicion that the passage is ‘not peaceful’ (article 25), which gives Italy additional grounds to reject illegal migrants on suspicion of infiltration of terrorists of Al-Qaeda, Islamic State, and the other terrorist groups, active in Maghrib.

I thank #Spain PM @sanchezcastejon for taking in #Aquarius after #Italy broke international rules and caused a standoff. #Malta will be sending fresh supplies to the vessel. We will have to sit down and discuss how to prevent this from happening again.This is a European issue -JM